comScore has released
some intriguing data about Web usage internationally. They say that 14 of
the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US
than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties – Yahoo! Sites, Time
Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.
This is significant because it’s a continuation of a long-term trend for
online population to be more distributed around the world – particularly in
China and the rest of Asia. Indeed comScore says that the US share of global online
population has fallen from 65% to less than 25% in 10 years. We’ve been tracking these trends on R/WW all this year – in
September we noted that as a percentage of world Internet penetration, Asia
increased from 35.6% to 36.5%. This incremental increase is happening month by
month, whereas the US figure is staying static. As Bob Ivins, managing director
of comScore Europe, said:
“The fact that more than three-quarters of the traffic to Google,
Yahoo!, and Microsoft is now coming from outside of the U.S. is indicative of
what a truly global medium the Internet has become.”
Even at the Web 2.0 Summit this year, it’s been noticeable that there is a larger international presence in the presenting companies. It’s a great trend and really shows how mature the Web medium is getting. There are also big implications for marketers and advertisers, as more and more of the Internet’s population becomes international.
